Read "To One Shortly to Die" by Walt Whitman online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
1. From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you: / You are to die -- Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate, / I am exact and merciless, but I love you -- There is no escape for you.
2. Softly I lay my right hand upon you -- you just feel it; / I do not argue -- I bend my head close, and half envelop it, / I sit quietly by -- I remain faithful, / I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbour, / I absolve you from all except yourself, spiritual, bodily -- that is eternal, -- / The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.
The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions! / Strong thoughts fill you, and confidence -- you smile! / You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick, / You do not see the medicines -- you do not mind the weeping friends -- I am with you, / I exclude others from you -- there is nothing to be commiserated, / I do not commiserate -- I congratulate you.